I was recently laid off after working here for more than five years as a QA Lead.
Over the past year and a half, there have been a lot of structural changes. The company was acquired by another organization, and it also acquired another company. In order for the company to be listed, we were forced to sell all of our ESOPs.
Problems started after that. Before, there was no pressure, and the company was good and employee-friendly. But after listing, it seems there has been a lot of pressure from stakeholders to show the company as profitable. There were also many changes in billing amounts, which caused existing clients to assign less work. As a result, many employees who had been on projects for 7–8 years ended up on the bench. Once on the bench—or even before—HR would push you to attend internal openings. The twist is that there were no projects in other accounts, as they were facing the same issues. Some clients extended timelines by just 2–3 months, but HR would still ask you to attend interviews for the sake of it. If you performed well, they’d say the client closed the position; if not, they’d say you didn’t perform well. After 3 interviews—or sometimes just 1—they would start asking or even forcing you to resign, citing no projects and an overwhelming bench capacity.
They would continuously call you to resign and look for opportunities outside. It wasn’t just me—even people who had joined just 3 to 6 months earlier were told to leave the organization.
I don’t understand why they are still holding interviews for projects. In most cases, candidates are rejected. It seems they are trying to show stakeholders that there are requirements and that interviews are happening, but in reality, it’s the opposite.
I never faced this situation before; it started about a year and a half ago.
I would suggest not joining this organization for at least a couple of years. Let them settle down—it might take at least that long. Layoffs are happening for every position, from junior developer to manager and beyond. Only join if you are desperate, and even then, hope you won’t be laid off.
